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| 19 families control 1/3 of Israel's economy |
| 2007-07-23 |
| Nineteen families control one-third of Israel's economy, including much of the Jewish state's news media, according to a study released today. The families all have given campaign contributions to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and foundations associated with newly installed Israeli President Shimon Peres, WND has learned. Most of the families support major leftist Israeli organizations. The Concentration Index, which measures the wealth of families who control companies that affect all aspects of the lives of regular Israeli citizens, published its annual study today reporting 19 families take in one-third of the revenues of the 500 leading Israeli companies. The leading companies own most of Israel's news media. The top five families on the list, including U.S. media mogul Haim Saban, control 61 percent of the income of these 19 families – up from 54 percent in 2005. Saban is a top supporter of Peres and of major Israeli and international organizations petitioning for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and sections of Jerusalem. Israel evacuated Gaza in 2005; since then rockets have been regularly launched into nearby Jewish population centers. The West Bank is within rocket-firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport. Today's Concentration Index study follows a Forbes Magazine report from last year revealing 12 business groups control more than 60 percent of Israel's economy, making it among the most concentrated in the world. The 12 groups include Saban's organization and a group controlled by Matthew Bronfman, who was recently installed as leader of the World Jewish Congress, a major Jewish organization. Forbes contended the groups constructed their empires, which own about 60 percent of the aggregate market value of all Israeli public companies, using organizational methods that were abolished in the Western world in the 1930s. The groups reportedly achieved tight economic ownership by structuring their companies in pyramid-style, putting top holding companies in charge of smaller companies that all are beholden ultimately to the 12 groups. The U.S. largely eliminated this style of privatized influence nearly 80 years ago through a series of restrictions on ownership and the implementation of double taxation of dividends paid by a company to its parent organization. The Forbes article stated the 12 groups have a disproportionately large amount of control over Israel's economy and the country's media through ownership of many of Israel's top banks and large media companies. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #10 Actually, not all that many Israelis come from the U.S. But about half come from not-Europe: the Arab world, the Magreb and sub-Saharan Africa, Hispanic America... and it's the not-European Israelis who are having more children, in line with the cultures they came from. I wonder what Israel will be like a generation from now. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-07-23 17:33 |
| #9 Holy Mighty Morphin Power Rangers! What next from these people? |
| Posted by: Ho Chi Spomosh2247 2007-07-23 17:19 |
| #8 BTW that last post was me. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2007-07-23 15:44 |
| #7 Moose, I don't think it's about keeping people poor but of making yourself richer. Mexico should be a PARADISE, they have the land, minerals, and workforce to be an economic powerhouse. The problem is that there is way way too much corruption at all levels of the Government. |
| Posted by: John Kerry 2007-07-23 14:12 |
| #6 Headline reads like NEW JERSEY... |
| Posted by: borgboy2001 2007-07-23 12:36 |
| #5 The problem isn't wealthy families. It is an "Old Europe" disease, in which the wealthy families use every effort to keep everyone else poor. They find they cannot enjoy their wealth unless they are surrounded by poverty. This afflicts Europe, and Mexico through South America, along with many other places once dominated by Europe. In the US, it seems bizarre, as most of our billionaires make themselves wealthier by making many, many more people millionaires. Bill Gates, for example, has probably created tens of thousands of wealthy people as a by-product of becoming wealthy himself. Hundreds of thousands moved into the upper middle classes. Compare that with Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican billionaire, who has only enriched perhaps a few dozen, and they were probably very well to do to start with, anyway. As far as the rest of his employees, he wants to keep them as far down the wage scale as possible. This is why Mexico's economy should be a LOT bigger than it is. It is not just a willingness of their rich to allow poverty, they actively encourage it. And this is also why these regions tend to have government that vacillate between extremes of socialism and extremes of dictatorship. Even France has been described as "mob rule punctuated by dictatorship." Venezuela before Chavez was an excellent example of the disease. A few families earning most of the money while everyone else lived in squalor. This is why Chavez rose in the first place. Of course, as soon as the great egalitarian became el Supremo, he puts himself in the position of the wealthy, wanting everything for himself, and to hell with the peasants. This is typical. Most likely, Israel done not have a full blown case of this problem, in that many Israelis were raised in the US. But perhaps their wealthiest families earned their wealth in Europe or Russia. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-07-23 10:27 |
| #4 I hear almost the entire place is run by Jews, too. |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2007-07-23 09:02 |
| #3 So Olmert's not a fool as we thought, but the sock puppet of a fool. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2007-07-23 08:01 |
| #2 Mexico? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2007-07-23 05:31 |
| #1 Marx would propagandize about 200 families controlling Europe. Salvadorian Reds spoke of "14 families" |
| Posted by: McZoid 2007-07-23 02:58 |